Dec 15 2004

Our Lady of Cheese: The Virgin Mary Sandwich Comes to Las Vegas

by Megan Edwards

It may be a little hard to explain why a 10-year-old cheese sandwich with a bite out of it would sell for $28,000. Okay, it does have a face on it, and it does look like a woman, but still. $28,000 is enough to buy a fairly nice new car, and no official mouthpiece of the Pope is confirming the claim that the face is the Virgin Mary’s.

What isn’t difficult to explain is why the Virgin Mary cheese sandwich was in Las Vegas for a few days. What more appropriate place is there for a dubious relic enjoying its brief blaze of fame than the city of Elvis? The fact that its new owner is an online casino is another logical reason for the sandwich to visit.

I learned that the high profile cheese sandwich was going to be on display at the Hard Rock Café when I read the morning paper the other day. I checked out the accompanying photograph, and noted that, sure enough, there’s a toasty little face near one point, and you don’t even have to squint to be convinced. It looks feminine, too, kind of like — hey! Maybe it’s Elvis-related, after all! The face looks a lot like Ann-Margret!

If it’s hard to explain the popularity of the sandwich, it’s equally difficult for me to explain why I decided to go and visit it. I’m not Catholic, I’m not a big fan of relics, and the Hard Rock Café is not a place I ordinarily patronize. I think what caused me to drive up to the corner of Paradise and Harmon is that it was now or never. Ever since Siegfried and Roy disappeared from the stage so abruptly, I’ve realized that procrastination can be a costly sin in Sin City. I never saw the “magicians of the century” perform. I never had a drink at the Glass Pool Inn before it was bludgeoned to dust, and I was too lazy to drive up the Strip to watch the implosion of the last chunk of the Desert Inn. How could I rationalize missing easy communion with the holy lunch?

The sandwich had no sign, but it didn’t need one. Surrounded by cotton balls in a little clear plastic box, it was reposing inside a case upholstered with Golden Palace Online Casino fabric. A modest crowd hovered near it, and most of the comments had to do with the sandwich’s apparent freshness.

“Where’s the mold?” asked a guy in a cowboy hat. I could have told him that when I was five years old, I stored half a hamburger in my top drawer for three months. It was so good, I hadn’t wanted to eat it all at once. When my mother finally found it, she commented on its surprising lack of mold. Perhaps, if she’d looked closer, she would have seen its uncanny resemblance to… but no, I digress.

I saw the sandwich. I took its picture. I can see why the Pope is keeping his distance. It’s obviously Ann-Margret.

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